This comment, written by one of our editors, was censored by the Guardian. Which of the well-publicised CiF “community standards” did it breach?

Snapshot of where it was:

It should be noted that every single one of the claims made is objectively and provably true.

It’s also interesting to note the title of this article was actually edited after publication – the original title can was “Why Hillary Clinton is so unlikeable”, as can be seen here in this tweet from Deborah Orr:

78 Comments

There goes another Guardian account. I got banned again for “wrong think” after posting about 15 comments. That’s actually a personal best for me. Usually their censorship team ban me after about 3 comments.
I don’t think I’ll bother again. Even my staunch leftist friends don’t take the Guardian seriously anymore.

I am laughing at your term “wrong-think”. I am being censored heavily by Disqus. I have two comments/replies that are being ‘monitored’ as I write. I believe it is pathetic by the kakistocracy, but totally not surprised by psychopaths wanting control, even to the extent of comments.

For want of a better place to post this, this thread is to for posting evidence of Off Graun censorship and bullyboy tactics to shut down free speech.

This thread is not intended to be a discussion space, simply a place to post evidence. If you want to discuss Off Graun censorship please create a separate thread so that this one doesn’t get sabotaged.

NOTE BY ADMIN – FWIW none of Aaron’s comments have been censored, because we don’t censor comments. Aaron’s motives for starting this strange discussion we won’t speculate upon. However, unless he starts being abusive, threatening or spammy he is free to post his claims here.

The problem with this title it is:
1) Assumes that it cannot possibly be wrong, and
2) Therefore everyone who says otherwise must be “fools and liars”.

This does not encourage free speech, it shuts it down. Who would want to offer alternative evidence to challenge the rhetoric in the article if that automatically labelled them “fools and liars”.

It sets up a dictatorial tone that punishes anyone who just want to discuss what is being said. Not surprisingly this article received less comments than average because the only people happy to post are those that already agree with what is being said. Basically, preaching to the converted.

I had typed this comment on my mobile which, as we all know, can cause autospell errors. It’s doesn’t help that I am also dyslexic. Off Graun don’t support editing or deleting of old comments so the only way to show that a typo wasn’t intentional is to post another comment saying so. I didn’t want people to think there was any sinister meaning to me calling Off Graun, Off Grain, so I posted an extra comment to clear it up.

But, as is typical with Off Guardian there are those with aggressive and extremist stances. They voted down my acknowledgement of my own typo. This is good an example of ad hominem (or logical fallacy) which is a tactic many posters use, including Admit (evidence will follow).

The title seemed to me so completely ridiculous that to accept it would be a crime of intellect and common sense. I decided to challenge the logic without making it specific to Putin, as I knew that even mentioning Putin would open up a whole political can of worms.

I was hoping for some enlightened conversation. What I got instead was more ad hominem attacks. Even Admit joined in the foray guilty of the same behaviour it criticises.

Here is another screengrab of bullyboy tactics, which can be very subtle and insidious.

Here, you can see the user calling themselves Paolo is trying to rewrite what I meant, as if to pretend that it was a typo.

When I simply confirm that I had meant what I originally posted that gets voted down. A comment should never be voted down for merely acknowledging the existence of another comment. Admin seems to have no problem with this type of manipulation and even does it itself from time to time.

People were getting aggravated with my non partisan approach because it denied them the opportunity to post even more political rhetoric which would have sabotaged the thread, so in typical Off Graun ad hominem style they decided to attack the messenger rather than the message.

Screengrab:

Here, you can see the user calling themselves “Jen” is trying to bring my identity into disrepute by implying that I am somehow 2 people. There is a flood of support for Jen but when I point out a perfectly reasonable cause I am downvoted. Simply for pointing out that it depends how I log on.

Actually, I wasn’t even aware that my comments were posting under two different IDs until Jen pointed it out. But since one is aaronmicalowe (based on Off Graun login) and the other is Aaron Lowe (based on Facebook login) it’s quite easy to see I am in fact the same person.

Typical of Off Graun (and The Guardian), one way people try to sabotage a thread is to make repeated accusations. Here’s an example from above.

Jen: “flood this comments forums with repetitive remarks”

Me: I have pointed out off graun censorship twice. Hardly repetitive.

I may have posted more about censorship since these comments so it might seem I’ve miscounted. We have to be aware of the date and exact time comments are made as conversations evolve.

It also didn’t help that I had posted a reply to a person that was meant to be a new thread. Because I wasn’t able to edit or delete the misplaced comment I had to post it again as a new comment (not a reply).

Despite me pointing out to Jen that his/her accusation was unfounded, Jen never acknowledged his/her error or apologised for it. Instead Jen will continue firing off accusations in the knowledge that it take more effort to respond than to make the accusation. This is a bullyboy tactic intended to wear down an opponent. Since I don’t see Jen as an opponent this aggressive behaviour flows one way.

Sometimes Admin decides to muscle in and apply some bullyboy tactics of its own. This can quickly escalate in something every similar to CiF. It seems that some moderators just can’t accept when someone has a different view to their own.

Screengrab:

The first an simplest way to deny something is to claim the opposite, which is what Admin does. They then attempt to distract the situation by claiming that comments posted is evidence of non-censorship. Censorship doesn’t have to be obvious, it can be in insidious. For example, the obstacles to black people voting even though the law seems to allow it.

Then Admin claims that they’ve received complaints, without providing any evidence. A complain in and of itself can be used as a form of censorship and is a good example of a bullyboy tactic. I checked the icons around others comments to see if there was any way to report abusive content. There isn’t. So, either these people wrote privately to Admin (doubtable) or Admin simply made it up knowing they could fake it later if challenged (possible). I don’t know which but it is the type of ad hominem attack Admin specialises in. Rather that point out what is in my comment that they find offensive, they are attacking me directly as a person. This is clear evidence of the abuse of Admin’s responsibility to protect and enable free speech.

Admin asks me to be less repetitive (without providing any evidence), less combative (I was expressing my views without attacking anyone, whereas most other people including Admin were attacking me without expressing any views), and inaccurate. I expressed my view that no human is incorruptible. All that would be needed to show my view was inaccurate would be to give one example (just one) proving someone who is incorruptible. Neither Admin nor any other user attempted to do this, thereby nullifying their claim that I was being “inaccurate”.

I interpreted Admin’s continuous threatening and aggressive behaviour towards me (without any thread of evidence provided by Admin) as a threat to prevent me from commenting. What happened next proved my interpretation to be accurate.

Screengrab:

Notice that Admin has deleted the ability for me to reply. That IS direct censorship.

Then I posted on another article and got this:

Notice how I was then immediately placed under pre-moderation. This is a common tactic used by The Guardian to censor unwanted comments so I was very surprised to see Off Graun using the same tactic.

The comment did not appear for about 24 hours by which time most people had moved on to the next article. Censorship by delaying expression is still censorship. See how insidious it is? Now Admin can claim that the comment was never deleted, but who would know otherwise?

Why would Admin bother doing this? Probably just to goof around but it’s still worthy to add to the gathering evidence of Admin’s behaviour.

Here’s another post where the name gets edited:

To this one:

Note: After this whole thread of posts (about 5 posts) got deleted yesterday I was immediately placed on pre-moderation preventing me from making any further posts that day. So, sometimes I have to wait 24 hours before being able to repost what gets deleted.

Moreover, every post I make has to be saved separately and a screengrab taken, and every post I reply to has to be saved separately and screengrab taken.

But the good thing about getting your posts continuously deleted is 1) It forces you to be on the ball, all the time, and 2) You always make a better attempt the 2nd time round. It forces you to improve and focus on your target.

1) We have NOT put you under pre-mod, because we NEVER put anyone under pre-mod

2) Sometimes individual comments get held back for pre-mod by our software. Sometimes this is because the comment contains more than three hyperlinks. Sometimes it is for unknown reasons. When this happens the comment is invariably approved as soon as anyone sees it. Occasionally, if it’s spam or contains content-free abuse or incitements to violence, it will not be approved.

3) Sometimes, again for unknown reasons, comments will vanish, either in pre-mod or simply after posting. We don’t know why and can do nothing about tis until we move to our own build, which we hope to do some time this year.

When you clog threads with content-free whining and baseless claims of persecution you are ruining this resource for others here who have useful things to contribute. Most sites would already have put you on pre-mod or banned you outright, because your ratio of constructive to unconstructive comment is something like 1/9. We maintain a very open comment system here. Don’t abuse it.

I created another thread, not the one on April 19. Would show you if it still existed. As you can see (if you actually read the comment you replied to) the last post that got deleted is not shown anywhere else.

I’ve always made sure that my comments on CiF never breach the community guidelines. I know that I have a very different political perspective to The Guardian, but I think that’s why I comment beneath the line, to provide some balance (in a polite, respectful way). I have never directed a personal comment at another user, or made a personal comment about a journalist or political figure without providing a justification (e.g. “Barack Obama was a bad president, he was at war every day of his 8-year term”).

However, when my comments started to get lots of recs, they put my account on permanent pre-moderation. Now they block pretty much everything I try to post, even though it never violates the community standards. I find it utterly bizarre that some moderator, presumably someone who calls themselves a left-wing liberal, happily carries out what they must know is just plain censorship. I know I should just make another account or stop using CiF, but I want that person to come face to face with his/her hypocrisy every time they choose not to allow my comment to be published on the website just because they disagree with it ideologically.

I replied to an adamant White Helmet supporter who was demanding concrete evidence that his saintly hero’s were stooges and I politely posted youtube links to interviews with Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley,

well, in Serbian media, which is 90% owned or under control of foreigners (Western foreigners!), similar comments do not get published at all…so, from our perspective this is great, since comment was published for a period of time…you can guess, we had Soros sponsored “coloured revolution” in 2000., and neoliberal pro-eu fanatics in power, who go to Embassies of USA, UK, France, Germany on daily basis, for their opinion…

Now expose the government targeting innocent citizens with military weapons to isolate them, ruin their lives and then try to have them act out criminally. They are using mind control and directed energy weapons (V2K, remote neural monitoring, microwaving, scalar, sound) and gang stalking on innocent citizens. These technologies can’t be seen or traced and the victims are left with little recourse since the attacks can’t be proven. The victims may appear to have mental issues, however it is the technology that is violating their minds and bodies causing voices, hallucinations, time lapses, and multiple other violations. Psychiatry is a hoax, these technologies cause many mental issues. Freedomfchs.net, ICAACT.org, Jesse Ventura’s Brain Invaders youtube, intellihub.com, John Hall’s book Guinea Pigs, Renee Pittman’s (Anne Frank of our times) books and countless victims are trying to expose the truth. The media, politicians, and psychiatry all cover for this and are complicit for this torture taking place for decades remotely in every city. These psychopaths in government need to be exposed and the true terrorists are in government agencies remotely targeting individuals with military technology.
These technologies violate the minds and bodies of the afflicted persons and are the most egregious violation of human rights perpetrated by the government with your tax dollars. Taxpayers should be demanding their government quit paying for these crimes against humanity on law abiding citizens. No wonder we are broke. Why pay perps sitting at computers screwing with people in their beds and living rooms, these treasonous criminals and agencies need to be exposed and jailed. EXPOSE AND END THE TORTURE AND HOLOCAUST NOW.

Personally I think the reason it was deleted is that it seems irrelevant. Maybe in your head it made sense, but in the eyes of the moderator it seemed meandering and pointless. They might’ve given it the benefit of the doubt if there was a clear message, but as it seemed to be self indulgent sarcasm – and because it referenced Hitler, they thought they’d err on the side of caution.

Last year my account got banned because I complained that an article about violence against women was sexist. Today another article appeared so I complained about it being sexist again. Immediately banned.

If I get a chance to support regulation against this newspaper I’m going to do it first chance I get.

Oh and a special mention for the Guardian, the British newspaper who did its utmost to make the Republican Party Trump’s by banning me from commenting on their stories from my pro-Condoleezza Rice perspective.

Yes the “Guardian” that parades itself as a guardian of liberal values helped stick the US with a Trump led Republican Party by crushing any defence of a kinder, gentler US Republican Party under Condi’s leadership.

So simply don’t believe for one second the sincerity of the Guardian “Tut, tuting” about Trump.

The Guardian, and the liberal US press, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal etc. helped hand the Republican Party to Trump by crushing my pro-Condoleezza Rice, pro-liberal Republican commentary in their comment pages, at the alter of defending their “line” against scrutiny of open discussion.

Trump’s victory is partly as a consequence of the hypocrisy of so-called “liberal” newspapers who are no such thing but entirely fascist when it comes to crushing free commentary in their own newspaper website comment sections.

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One reason might be the UK’s libel laws. I suspect fear of litigation is behind a lot of decisions to remove comments that make claims about individuals that, even if true and therefore not libelous, might see the Groan dragged through the courts by some vindictive Sue, Grabbitt and Runne (Chambers). Best not leave them up, eh? girls?

With reference to the deleted comment, the OP inferred that he didn’t like HRC because she was a woman, albeit this was very far down the list. This breached the sexism clause of the CiF Community Standards. Not everyone would take the comment that way, but with the weasely legally minded mods, that opening was all they needed.

The point is that there is NOTHING in the post to indicate that what was written was NOT Kit’s personal opinion. I don’t disagree with your interpretation, but you must undrstand that the comment can be interpreted in way which breaches the CiF standards.

the reference to the article itself, which kit disagreed with. the point of the article is that the opposition to clinton is fueled by misogyny. kit’s point is that it isn’t. somehow misinterpreting the comment to indicate not only agreement with the article’s theme but personal endorsement of it has no basis in any kind of rational interpretation.

How can I say this?
The reason I am here is that I don’t particularly like the Grauniad or believe what it spouts. However, in order to reach your conclusion, you have interpreted Kit’s comment in a particular way. So has the Grauniad interpreted the comment in a contrary way.
To make it simple…
The article asks why people hate HRC?
Kit provides a nice list (of totally valid reasons) which the G will have assumed are Kit’s reasons. Then Kit says “Her being a woman is very far down the list”. It’s not too much a stretch to assume that the G interpreted that sentence to mean that Kit hates HRC because she is a woman. We all know that Kit meant this rhetorically, but the G interprets things to it’s advantage (as we all know). So in their eyes, it was correct to censor the comment! I am just providing ONE hypothesis as to why the comment was deleted – I’m not agreeing that the deletion was justified.
Best chill out.

Excuse me, but if you have seen the video of her words about this horrible bit of her history, how lease tell us, can you assert this is misunderstood? If you have not seen it, which I suspect is the case, how can you assert anything about it?

Assuming we’re talking about the same video, I’ve seen it. She’s laughing at the fact that the rapist passed the polygraph test which showed to her that polygraph tests are unreliable. She’s not laughing at anything to do with the girl.

I think she was just “doing her job” (that seemingly she had been reluctant to take on), however, another, more principled person in her situation may have fought for a different outcome whereas she, being extremely ambitious, probably would not have done that. Also, I know that Snopes is not so reliable but I think their explanation in this case sounds reasonable.

It’s not as if I want to defend her at all as she’s got her finger on the nuclear trigger, there’s a suspiciously high body count among her acquaintance, and she’s a documented criminal beyond potential murders. I guess it is silly for me to say anything about the rape case but I do feel it’s distorted, that’s all.

I can’t help liking this video of her being taken to task over her email exchange with Sidney Blumenthal by Trey Gowdy, even though I have to admit part of its appeal is the theatrical effect:

And then there’s this video from James Corbett
Hillary Clinton Is A Threat To All Of Humanity

Read the Megan Carpentier article and was astounded that she makes no mention of Billary. That’s what happens when papers employ kids.

The initial antipathy to Hillary was due to her assumption that she personally had political power when it was her husband who had been elected. Hillary behaved as if she and Bill had stood on a joint ticket, hence the Billary moniker (no joke intended).

You wrote recently about the censorship of someone else’s comment on the Guardian. These are not isolated incidents. I was a frequent commentator on “Common Dreams.” My comments were always within the guidelines of civil discourse. Many times, though, they were anti-Hillary Clinton as I consider her a great evil and an unworthy candidate for president. Not too long ago I was barred from commenting as were some others who were long time commentators. Then my mother and sister, whose comments were similar to mine, were barred from commenting. We are rapidly moving into an even more troubling, even more totalitarian American – and probably global – landscape.

That’s very interesting. Progressive media (by which I mean ‘progressive’ media) everywhere is showing it’s true colors. John Stauber’s CounterPunch article about the buying of the progressive movement (http://bit.ly/2dkbE6V) was ‘not’ shrill. Just a few hours ago, I was in a coffee shop in downtown Toronto, on my laptop. I was just flitting around, clicking on my bookmarks willy nilly and I don’t know where it started, but one link led to another until I found myself on the Yes! Magazine website. It’s the creation of David Korten, author of a very good book titled “When Corporations Rule The World.” Amazing isn’t it? People who write books with titles like that would be the last ones in the world you’d expect to be found exercising censorship, and yet, my two online comments (in a dead discussion, so it makes you wonder) to David’s reasonable enough article (part of 1 of 2 parts) titled “The Elephant in the Room: What Trump, Clinton, and Even Stein Are Missing,” were both disappeared. The first comment, at first, appeared. There seemed to be no problem. There was no ‘withheld for moderation’ message or anything like that. So I didn’t bother to track it. The second comment generated a ‘withheld for moderation’ comment, and because I thought I’d blog about the very good article – about which I had some criticisms – later at home, I copied it to my clipboard. Then when I got home and went to the article, I saw nothing at all. There was no sign that any reader activity had taken place in the comment section of this ‘progressive’ website. It’s the weekend, So we’ll see. I blogged about the article anyway. I was only more interested in doing so as a result of this unsettling experience.

See my blog post titled “The Idea Of A Power Imbalance Between Corporations And Governments Is A Red Herring.” – http://bit.ly/2eG0FDR

I am immediately alarmed when this disappearing activity takes place. But that doesn’t mean that I immediately know exactly what has happened and I always take into consideration the existence of (invisible, self-appointed) ‘gatekeepers’ (http://it.ly/1AyUpVb0). And crap does happen. Computers and the internet are not perfect. And the fewer an org’s resources, the less flexibility that org has to deal with faulty software and problems that may stem from that. Even human error cannot be ruled out. Which is why I first try to exhaust possible causes that are not nefarious before concluding that my post (or posts) has been disappeared. I remember jumping all over Common Dreams for disappearing my comments, only to learn that they were dealing with attacks and other problems and. And reading their own terms of use and information about censorship (which, note, has changed over time), which, in fairness they take pains to point people to, reveals that they do not censor (for political reasons), period. Or that ‘was’ the case. I think that the wording there was, alarmingly, changed, so make of it what you will. I do note that they have received (and may still receive) funding from George Soros’s Open Society foundation (http://bit.ly/2d5yW1A). The linked-to website in regard to the preceding sentence is clearly owned by rightwingers. Nevertheless, Assuming that it’s list is correct, I would say it’s useful.).

I used to comment on Reader Supported News and was eventually barred because they had promised a discussion about their censorship which never took place, and when I posted on this you can guess what happened. It’s all rather depressing.

Sorry to post something off-topic, but it’s regarding The Guardian. When I see things like this I wonder if it’s not possible for the alternative media to conduct their own polling, not online but as an ordinary poll. Probably not, but it’s a thought, because I guess most of us regard polls like this as suspicious.

The best most thorough poll of the candidates was of 50,000 people and was recently done by Anonymous. The results were astounding compared to the other crooked media polls which are of hundreds and thousands cherry picked at best. The same media is NOT going to report such a poll though so you are wasting your time waiting to read about it there. I shall not be a spoiler and tell the results but it is not a poll which is easily questioned either you will see .

Thanks. I was wondering if there was anything like this for the UK, because The Guardian was originally a left-leaning UK paper, so all the Corbyn bashing is particularly disgusting from that publication. That’s why I was asking.

If you think if freedom of speech and the press are under attack now, wait until the Wicked Witch of the East flies into the WH, it won’t be long before we’ll look back at this time as the ‘Good ol’ Days.’

I reckon bringing up the 1975 thing is scraping the barrel and likely to wind up the legal-wise femina-fascists at the Graun, just like a picador at a bullfight. Gloating over the murder of Muammar Gaddafi, which she organised, is surely enough to see her sent down for ever – if the ICC was really what it is supposed to be or if hell actually existed – and plenty enough to exclude her from fitness for the post of POTUS. If the Guardian was really a feminist newspaper, it would be backing Jill Stein; instead it’s part of the conspiracy to make her invisible.

A Clinton server email released by WikiLeaks shows that at least one Guardian writer acted as a stenographer (“non-political surrogate”) for the Clinton campaign. Jessica Valenti was on conference call with Clinton’s campaign staff to help frame an anti-Sanders narrative that would counter a pro-Sanders Twitter hashtag (#I’mSoEstablishment) that had gone viral.

Working with bloggers and columnists to write about this from a racial justice and reproductive rights perspective, including a few people who joined us on a call to talk about the “Bernie Backlash” that was unfolding even before his remarks last night—current list is Elianne Ramos, Jessica Valenti (who is writing a column on this as we speak), Jamil Smith, Sady Doyle, Aminatou Sow, Gabe Ortiz, and others

The Guardian released her article two days later, which dutifully repeated the talking points set up by the campaign staff, without mentioning how or why the article came to be.

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OffGuardian is the creation of people from different parts of the world committed to the original vision which drew us together on The Guardian‘s CiF pages...Tired of being censored by our beloved, once-upon-a-time left-of-centre newspaper, in February 2015 we decided to create our own platform for airing our unacceptable opinions.

If you’re also sick of being stifled, moderated, slandered as 'Putinbots' or worse, and censored to oblivion on any of the Readers’ Comments sections of our mainstream press, come and tell us about it.